On Sun, 29 Sep 1996 13:26:08 -0400 (EDT), Rabid Wombat wrote:

...

The old way was that your HS provided what the mythical average person needed to go about life. College was for the more "complex" careers.

Perhaps "high school" should end at age 16, with two years of publicly funded "junior college" or "technical school" available to those who select one or the other, and qualify. This would bring an adult-level decision earlier in life, and students would need to start thinking about which path to chose at about 14. Perhaps this would allow reality to set in at an earlier age. A high school diploma has become meaningless anyway - it is viewed as a "right."

How about a real simple rule: if you don't pass a standardized test (Call it the SATs w/800 of 1600 minimum) you repeat the grade - no maximum age! Might end some of those "easy A" classes I took.

This wouldn't leave anyone condemned to a life of menial labor for a decision made at age 16 - there are plenty of successful people who have obtained a G.E.D. later in life, and then gone on to college. It would, however, give some measure of responsibility to the near-adult.

Yeah. I'd still say that you'd want to make it pretty easy to switch over - I've known a few people who were massively flip-flopping. Also, some kids may have hard times (parents divorce, etc) that might screw up their judgement for awhile. . .

fiance did drop out of high school at age 16 and started college, with her parent's blessing. All her high school guidence counselor could come up with was "But she'll miss her prom"! <g> That seemed to be the general focus last year... "We may be idiots but we have school spirit!"

In CA, isn't there the option of taking CHSPE (sp?) that is like a GED but instead of sending the "I don't want this" message is more like "I don't want to waste my time"? # Chris Adams <adamsc@io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # <cadams@acucobol.com> | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY" "That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change them." --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)